


A Lesson for Future Generations

by Nenalata



Series: Seeing Red: Tales from the Rory Hawke-Verse [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Comics), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, And Anyone Can Be a Teacher, Around and Around Thedas We Go, Around and Around the Dragon Age We Go, Babies, Comic: Dragon Age: The Silent Grove, Dalish Issues, King Alistair, Light Angst, Loss of Virginity, Multi, Post-Dragon Age II, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, Post-Dragon Age: Origins, Pre-Comic: Dragon Age: The Silent Grove, Red Hawke (Dragon Age), Rival Relationship, Sex is Always a Learning Experience, So Many Housekeeping Tags, The Pearl (Dragon Age), Warden Bethany Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: The Waking Sea, 9:37 DragonHawke trembled too hard to stop her, but maybe nothing in that moment could have. Eyes alight with fury, Isabela whispered, “You think no one had a life before they met you, don’t you?Note: References quite heavily toFifteen Shades of Red, so I recommend reading that first.





	A Lesson for Future Generations

**The Waking Sea, 9:37 Dragon**

Hawke looked like the rigging had just struck her, and a not-so-tiny part of Isabela’s mind wished it had.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Isabela glared. “You _knew_. And your ever-devoted murder-boyfriend _still_ doesn’t.”

“What was I supposed to do?” The imperious words coming out of Hawke’s mouth sounded much less threatening, given the way she’d just been vomiting over the side of the ship. “Killing Meredith was easier than rescheduling a Rite of Annulment for another seven months or whatever.”

Isabela just stared. Hawke, in the intervening silence, had the audacity to smooth her messy red hair back into something attempting neatness. Meanwhile, Isabela’s urge to kill was rising. “‘Or whatever?’” she finally repeated, aghast. “You don’t even _know_?”

“Leave me alone, Isabela. Go away.”

“You’re on _my_ ship, so that’s exactly what I’m _not_ doing, because sometimes _I’m_ not as self-absorbed as you say. But you? You didn’t tell anyone, and you still haven’t, and you kept going around, stabbing and punching—”

Hawke pushed herself to shaking feet with visible effort, but Isabela didn’t have much patience for sympathy. “And the _fuck_ else was I supposed to do, huh? Let my home blow up sooner than it was going to anyway?” she hissed, dropping her voice like a _coward_ , like she had something to fear from Isabela’s crew when the real threat was staring her down. “I don’t even know why it bothers _you_ of all people a girl got knocked up and doesn’t know when.”

Her mind positively _buzzed_ with sensation.

Isabela only registered she’d slapped her because, when her calloused hand cracked against Hawke’s tattooed face, a surge of violent, uninhibited pleasure ran through her blood.

Hawke trembled too hard to stop her, but maybe nothing in that moment could have. Eyes alight with fury, Isabela whispered, “You think no one had a life before they met you, don’t you?”

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

Admiral Isabela hadn’t been sure what to expect upon her arrival to Skyhold, but the _baby_ certainly hadn’t been on her list of possibilities, least of all Hawke’s _baby_ , least of all _Fenris’s_.

“When did you last see them?” Inquisitor Lavellan asked her as he escorted her down from her too-comfortable guest chamber to the main hall. He was a handsome man with dashing scars from combat and Dalish tattoo ink decorating every inch of visible skin—which, granted, wasn’t much—but they did make his face hard to read at times. Even his tone and body language weren’t forthcoming.

Had he even _read_ Varric’s book? She and Hawke weren’t known to be bosom buddies.

 _It wasn’t as though Hawke could compare in the_ bosom _department, anyway_.

“When I kicked them off my ship,” she replied, mustering as much disdainful cheer as she could. The Inquisitor laughed, which eased her tension, but his next words only served to confuse her more.

“Kicked,” he repeated. “I get it.”

“Get what, sweet thing?”

“He means he _gets it_ ,” the pretty Tevinter boy drawled out of nowhere, wrapping an arm around the Inquisitor’s waist. Isabela snorted. “Exceptionally well as of late, I’d say.”

She’d expected a hint of color to grace the normally stoic Inquisitor’s cheeks, but he remained stoic except for a smug half-smile. “Dorian, please. Not in front of the children.”

“There are many things I’m not supposed to do around the children.” Dorian said, sleek black mustache quirked. Isabela, ready to join in on the raunchy teasing, didn’t expect him to continue with, “Such as be around this particular one at all. Farewell, _amatus_. Squeeze the cute little bastard’s cheeks just for me.” And with a peck to the Inquisitor’s own cheek, he departed as suddenly and smoothly as he’d arrived, breezing out of the main hall and up the library stairs.

“Does he really count as a bastard? It’s kind of stupid if the ‘bastard’ definition is so precise,” Inquisitor Lavellan mused, rubbing his beardless chin, but Isabela couldn’t have replied even had she wanted to. Because there, in Skyhold, in the middle of the world ending, lounging on a bench with a familiar white-haired elf, was Rory Fucking Hawke and the _baby_.

“Ba!” the _baby_ cooed when it saw her, reaching out of Hawke’s arms with a chubby arm. She could tell, even standing in the doorway at a distance, the _baby_ had pointy ears. And, as if that were not proof enough, lyrium-marked hands with a revolting gentleness pushed the _baby_ back into a more comfortable position.

“Oh, Isabela! I’d say ‘hello,’ but it’s more like ‘good morning’ to you. Took your sweet-ass time waking up.” Hawke was probably smiling at her, judging by the sound of her voice, but Isabela couldn’t look at her because the _baby_ had Hawke’s eyes and it was pretty much the same as looking at the original pair, probably. She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away.

“ _Ir abelas_ , Hawke, but I’m under direct orders to, uh, pinch Kicker’s cheeks,” Inquisitor Lavellan said from somewhere behind her, but Isabela still did not move. She barely even heard Fenris’s irritated reply, focused only on the pieces clicking together in her mind, blood pulsing numb in her veins.

Her lips opened without her direction, and her voice didn’t sound like her own when she spoke. “You kept it?” Admiral Isabela rasped, and the stunned, horrified, furious silence following her words didn’t last nearly long enough.

* * *

 

**Denerim, 9:31 Dragon**

It didn’t take much hard listening for Isabela to hear an Antivan-accented voice drift over from somewhere near The Pearl’s bar. She perked up from where she was crouched over the diamondback table, and, sure enough, a flash of blond hair and a tanned face thrown back in laughter confirmed her happy suspicions. But Zevran wasn’t looking her way or even moving—he was with a friend. Or maybe even a _friend_.

Either way, all Isabela could see from this distance was two blond heads. Neither of these sights would help her win the droopy-eyed old mercenary’s nice new shortsword, and so she returned to smiling sweetly at the hag.

“Not gonna charm me out of nothing, sweetheart,” the mercenary grumbled, thumbing the side of her nose and reaching for the top of the deck again. “We play a fair game and maybe you earn my sword, or we don’t and you’ll get it for sure, but you won’t like how.”

“You must have been sitting on that threat all day,” Isabela chirped. “Clever old girl.” She got a glare for her efforts.

Something the Antivan accent had said must have annoyed the other blond man, because just as the mercenary was playing her hand, his voice rose from the bar and echoed. “I wouldn’t have to _worry_ if you hadn’t…hadn’t…been all…She didn’t even _like_ you! Not at first!”

“Ah, my dear, jealous Alistair. We have already established at the tailor that green does not become you, yes?”

“No, but a _crown_ does?”

“You know what does become you, however? A quieter voice.” There was an edge to Zevran’s voice now, and Isabela felt her eyebrows shoot straight above her hairline. That wasn’t _any_ sort of friend. That was Alistair, Grey Warden, bastard son of King Maric, heir to the throne, fiancé of Queen Anora.

And he was getting plastered here in the _Pearl_?

“Hey, missy,” the mercenary said, startled when Isabela rose and pushed away from the table, “you can’t just walk away when you’re losing.”

“Then if I’m walking away, it must mean I’m winning, sweet thing,” Isabela replied, but she lost interest in hearing any retort or objection to her quip. Instead, she pushed past several scantily clad gentlemen who were not, surprisingly, employees, and joined Zevran and Alistair at the filthy bar.

“Evening, boys,” she purred, leaning back on the bar to face them. Feeling not one but two pairs of eyes openly staring, she tossed her head back just enough to let her hair trail down the curve of her neck. “Here to test that Grey Warden stamina?”

Alistair sputtered, but Zevran’s lips unfurled in a smooth smile that looked a little too pleased with himself. _Well, wasn’t that interesting_. “As a matter of fact, we are,” he said, ignoring Alistair’s objections. “It seems that even I am much more acquainted with such stamina than our dear Alistair is.”

“Zevran—!”

Isabela looked Alistair over, trying to puzzle out the meaning. Eyes so wide the whites blinded her, nostrils flaring like a skittish horse, face as red as a broken maidenhead…

 _No_.

It was the _opposite_.

“You’re a virgin!” she cackled, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You could fill every widow’s hole in Denerim with two royal bastards apiece in one evening, and you’ve _never_ —“

Alistair cut her off with a groan and sank his face into his hands. It didn’t even manage to cover his blush properly. Zevran’s smile turned sharp.

“You see the problem, my Isabela,” he told her, gesturing to the room as a whole with a flourish. “Should Alistair wish to impregnate any widow, he must first start with his royally widowed fiancée, no?” What sounded like a muffled rendition of the Chant of Light babbled behind Alistair’s fingers. “Alas! Our friend wishes to make a _good impression_ —“

“—into the mattress!” Isabela chimed in, but Zevran didn’t even grace her with a laugh. Instead, he turned back to his blushing companion.

“Now, what were you saying earlier, Alistair?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Of course you do!” Dangerous cheer dripped from Zevran’s every word. Isabela watched the exchange with morbid fascination. “How did it go…Let’s see. Please, if I have gotten any details wrong, do not hesitate to correct me. Now—“

“Maker, _please_ no—“

“’Why couldn’t she have taken pity on me? I thought we were friends,” Zevran’s imitation of Alistair’s Common accent was hardly convincing, “‘She could have just let me into her tent so I could—‘ how did you put it, ‘ _get it over with_ before the wedding.’”

“Alistair,” Isabela cooed, matching the danger in Zevran’s tone, “surely you weren’t speaking of your chaste little Chantry sister’s tent.”

“What?” Alistair’s pink face reappeared from behind his hands. “No! Leliana? No! It was Porphyry—“ At the sight of Isabela’s frozen smile, he gulped and tried to hide again, but Isabela grabbed both his wrists.

“Now, that’s the real reason you’re a virgin,” she drawled. “All that _respect_ for your _friends_.”

Alistair tugged, but to no avail.

“Right you are,” Zevran agreed. “It is all fine and well for Alistair to show no respect to me and my choices, as I doubt he considers us friends. But to treat his fellow Warden without respect for _hers_ …Well. I cannot say if it is cruel to bruise his pretty face and deprive the lovelier Warden of the opportunity to do so. Isabela,” he turned to her while Alistair shut up, shame now blanching his face. “You see I find myself in my very first moral predicament. Lest you have forgotten that marvelous evening with the three of us, I shall remind you of where I keep my heart and where I put my cock.”

Isabela sure did. He’d never been as stingy with her as he had been while they shared the curvy exiled princess’s exotic dwarven delights.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Alistair whispered, and Isabela’s grip tightened.

“Sweet thing, I’m not sure you’re in a position to defend a woman’s honor.”

“You don’t understand—“

“Neither do you,” Isabela spat, all pretense of humor wiped clear of her expression. “If the two of you are friends, and you’d wanted your _friend_ to do you a favor, and she won’t, you grease up your hand and take ‘no’ for an answer. Friends don’t guilt friends into _sex_ , no matter how few strings attached.”

“And what, guilting me into a crown’s just fine?” But, judging by Alistair’s face, the words sounded hollow to his own ears. His shoulders sagged, and Isabela let him go. “You’re all saying it’s not a big deal,” he mumbled. “You, and Zevran, and Porphyry…but I’ve never,” his voice dropped, like it was still a secret, “had cause for an _opinion_ , and the first time is important to me. Since she says it’s just a…a good time, I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask, to be with a friend.”

“This is all very fine and good,” Zevran cut in, “but given that you came to the brothel right away to sulk over her rejection says otherwise.”

“I didn’t—“ Alistair sniped, then drew a deep breath. “Okay, yes, okay, fine, I’m sulking. And I thought it might be easier…for me! For me,” he elaborated when he saw their grins, “if I had my first time with…someone who wasn’t so connected to me. Who knew what they were doing and wouldn’t laugh at me.”

Isabela and Zevran’s eyes locked while Alistair ran a hand through his hair and ordered another drink. The irritation hadn’t quite left Zevran’s expression.

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

Staying out of fights was something Isabela had become very good at very quickly, even when she had caused a fight to occur in the first place.

Such was the case now. After giving a poor first impression on the _baby_ , Isabela took advantage of its presence as a reason to hop out the nearest exit. Fenris, Hawke, the Inquisitor, and whoever else was about, wrangling with the physical obstruction of carrying a tiny and fragile _baby_ , did not follow, at least not for now.

Perched on top of one of the higher towers, she had a clear and stunning view of the mountains. She was a fish out of water as much as she could possibly be, so far above sea level and above her paygrade that Isabela very nearly hopped right down and left again. Leaving was what she _did_ when the going got rough; leaving was what she was _good_ at.

And that thought made Isabela’s gut twist like someone had shanked her with a prison shiv.

Two people walked on the battlements below, one moving with clanky footsteps, the other with a lighter step, and both with deep voices. The Inquisitor and his lover. Isabela debated making herself even smaller, but decided more movement might make her obvious. It didn’t matter anyway. She heard one of them make an inquisitive noise— _not_ the Inquisitor, ha!—and before she could move, lyrium-blue light flashed next to her and the Tevinter boy was perched next to her, legs dangling over the edge.

“Well, hello there!” he greeted her with good cheer. “You’ve certainly found yourself a good hiding spot.”

 _Mages_.

“Not good enough, eh?” she forced a smile, and something softened in his dark brown eyes. She didn’t like it. The boy—Dorian! Dorian, that was his name—leaned over the side of the tower and called below.

“Care to join us, darling? It’s probably like one of those trees you Dalish like to scamper up.”

The Inquisitor, shading his eyes with one gauntleted hand, twisted his face in irritation. “Now that you said that, I’m going back to my rooms.”

“Spoilsport,” Isabela called, but her heart wasn’t in it. As he clanked away, she lay back away from the slotted edges and asked Dorian, “He didn’t want to _climb you like a tree_?”

Dorian shrugged. “Our Terrill can get so moody when it comes to all things Dalish. One would think I’d _learn_ what bits he finds ridiculous and what bits he holds sacred. But he’ll forgive me eventually.”

 _Forgiveness_.

The reason for her hiding place returned to Isabela’s mind like creeping frost. “Those types of men are always trouble.”

“Who, the good ones?” Dorian started to laugh, but now the sad, soft look in his eyes made them _both_ uncomfortable. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll break my heart.”

Isabela said nothing. Bethany, before Isabela had trudged on over to this blasted place, had told her to greet her sister with an open mind. “She won’t think there’s anything to forgive you for. Rory doesn’t hold grudges,” she’d insisted. “She can be—“

“A total bitch,” Isabela had supplied, and while Bethany sighed, she also hadn’t argued.

“She doesn’t, hm…she means well but does it poorly. She gets angry in the moment, and then gets over it.”

Isabela had rolled her eyes with enough drama that Bethany had almost giggled. “Well, lucky for her, because I wasted my time stopping at Cumberland for her ungrateful arse, and—“

“I know. You told me.”

“—turning my ship _right_ back around the second she left. Took a week off our course, and I got no thanks, no nothing!”

“I’ve written her the same—“

“She spends ten fucking years on a high horse, but she acts like a bitch on my ship and I tell her so, _once_ , and not a single fucking letter telling me if—“

“I know, Bela.”

“I’d say she better have a jaw-dropping, tits-bouncing good excuse for sending me this fucking—“ she’d shaken the tiny scrap of vellum at Bethany, who had nodded with big, sympathetic, patient eyes—“letter small enough to wipe my arse with telling me to come to the middle of nowhere, not some _bullshit_ reason for dropping off the face of Thedas.”

And the bullshit reason had been the _baby_. Isabela wondered if Bethany had known, and if so, why she hadn’t told her.

“So,” Dorian drawled after a minute or so of silence had come and gone. His voice had that bell-like Tevinter accent, same as Fenris. “Will you tell me if there was a reason for that spectacle earlier? They apparently acted like you’d vomited red lyrium on their child. Not that Terrill put it quite that way.”

Isabela hummed. “That depends if Hawke is still looking for me, sweet thing.”

“Oh, no. She brooded with her handsome elf for a while, and then I think it was time for Kicker to take a nap, and off they went.”

For some _stupid_ reason, the fact that Hawke hadn’t bothered to hunt her down pissed Isabela off. Hawke was always so dramatic, so excessive in her emotional displays, that most of the time Isabela wondered if she wasn’t as transparent as Fenris could be when he went all lyrium-ghost-y. But what, now Isabela wasn’t worth expending energy on? She’d insulted her. Fenris. The _baby_.

Nothing?

“Of course its name is Kicker,” she said instead while she stood, testing the tiles beneath her boots. “That’s a filthy-looking tavern over there. Care to show me the worst way to get plastered?”

“You know how to sweet-talk a man,” Dorian smirked, not pushing further or batting an eye at her random subject change. As she skipped down and he… _floated_ , Isabela almost wondered if they were alike in many ways before she decided not to care.

* * *

 

**Kirkwall, 9:37 Dragon**

“You’re taking me where?” Isabela planted her feet on the Hightown cobblestones. “I thought we were buying pants.”

“I thought so, too!” Hawke’s outrage matched hers, but Aveline had no sympathy for either of them.

“Hawke, you have a responsibility. That letter came days ago.”

Hawke crossed her arms over her chest. She was wearing a tunic, not armor. They all were, except for the Guard Captain, because, well, she was the guard captain. It was clothes-shopping day, and Hawke, Isabela, Aveline, and Merrill had planned it for a week. It was probably the only time Isabela could remember that they’d all been _excited_ to hang out together, just the four of them.

Aveline had changed up her shifts, though, and while they’d been disappointed, it was something they were used to. But changing up her shifts right when Hawke was already at the Keep doors to pick her up, and thus near King Alistair?

“You betrayed me,” Hawke accused her, and Isabela nodded emphatically. “You _know_ Jean-Luc never has sale days!”

Aveline didn’t even bother restraining her sigh. “You don’t procrastinate on a royal summons so you can go buy pretty dresses.”

“Pants,” Merrill corrected.

“Yes, pants. Pretty _pants_. Aveline, if you’re so excited, why don’t you meet him instead? Maker knows you’d do everyone a favor. Especially _His Royal Majesty_.”

Isabela, meanwhile, was edging backwards, away from the argument, away from the Keep.

“He specifically requested you. Rory Hawke. The Champion of Kirkwall.”

“Then I bestow the honorable title of Champion on you, Ser Aveline Vallen. Use it well, and don’t besmirch my good name. Wouldn’t want the King of Ferelden to think I didn’t give a shit, would we?”

Isabela had almost managed to reach the first potted tree in the Hightown courtyard when Merrill called brightly, “Are you really trying out the tree-sneaking I taught you, Isabela? You learned it better than I did.” And of course that drew Hawke and Aveline’s attention and ire.

“Always good to get some practice, kitten,” Isabela replied, just as brightly. Two glares fixed themselves on her half-hidden figure.

“If I have to go, so does she,” Hawke declared.

“Well, I’m here, anyway,” Merrill piped up, and while Hawke ignored her, Isabela gave her a hug.

Aveline placed a placating hand on Hawke’s bare arm. “We can all go shopping together afterwards. The rest of you can hang out in my office, if you’d like.”

That, at least, sounded much more amenable, and in they went. Captain of the Guard, maleficar Keeper of the Sabrae clan, reluctant Champion of Kirkwall, and steadily-more-anxious failed pirate duelist. Isabela wondered which of them wanted to be there less.

Probably her.

Neither King Alistair nor his royal retinue were anywhere in sight upon their arrival. Aveline furrowed her brow, and Hawke dragged her feet, glare deepening with each footstep. “He’s not even here,” she complained. “I bet he bought all the pants and left none for us.”

“Nothing left in our size,” Isabela agreed. Hawke clearly didn’t notice the tension in her voice even as she joked, but then again, Hawke never paid much attention to anything other than rabbit stew and Fenris’s soulful brooding eyes.

“He’s so bulky, and a human, and a man. I don’t think he would fit in our pants, would he?” Merrill worried. Aveline and Hawke both threw Isabela a smirk, waiting for the inappropriate remark. Yes, it really was low-hanging fruit, but she really couldn’t, she just couldn’t, she absolutely couldn’t, so she pretended to be inspecting her short bitten nails with frightening intensity.

“Anyway!” Aveline cleared her throat and led them to the barracks. “We’ll all just wait in my office, until—“

“Oh! Sorry, I shouldn’t be here, should I. I had to get away from the Seneschal, and your guards said no one would mind, and—“

Aveline sank to one respectful knee as the blond man in ceremonial chainmail jumped out of his chair—Aveline’s chair—and Isabela’s heart copied them both, sinking and jumping all at once.

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

The inn unfortunately contained a qunari, and Isabela wasn’t quite (emotionally, mentally, whatever) prepared to deal with that. The hulking man had seen her, of that she was quite sure, despite his eyepatch, but that didn’t stop her from slinking out the door almost as soon as she’d slunk in.

Honestly, if she couldn’t even drink comfortably, why in the Void had she even come?

“Of all the—seriously, Isabela. Give a guy a little warning before you shove into his space.” Varric clicked his door shut behind him and ambled over to an armchair by the fire. It looked far too comfortable to have come from Inquisition coffers. Isabela, eying it from where she was draped over a different canapé, had recognized it as a Varric Exclusive when she’d first picked the lock and had left it alone.

She could be selfless _sometimes_.

“Why, Varric,” she drawled, stretching until her hipbone cracked, “he always consents well beforehand.” Even she could hear the lack of humor in her voice. Varric sighed and settled deeper into his chair with a creak of his own. The firelight cast deep shadows into the lines on his face. Was he old? Were they all old? Funny thing, being old, when the companions of her youth were having _babies_ —

“Rivaini,” Varric said kindly, “brooding looks better on Fenris.”

Fenris? No, the _baby_ had Hawke’s eyes. Like fresh molasses, or wood varnish gleaming on a new masthead. Isabela’s stomach twisted. Would the _baby_ glare its brown eyes like its mother? Or glower like its father? Isabela wished they weren’t so similar a color to its aunt’s.

Varric didn’t press her when she stayed silent, but he did get up, his armchair groaning, and uncork a flask of whiskey for her. The good stuff, although Isabela couldn’t give many shits about quality at that moment. They passed it back and forth for an hour, watching the sun set, two people who had paid for pricier things than this liquor, who had never expected to live this long.

* * *

 

**A village near Llomeryn, Rivain, 9:22 Dragon**

“Just take her.”

Something, some feeling or emotion, something hot and fast like panic was bubbling in Naishe’s chest. She couldn’t see or feel the man’s eyes on her, didn’t care, could only stare at her mother.

The Qun loved her as she was, her mother declared. The Qun looked at a person and saw their worth, not their actions. Her charlatanry, her thievery, all of this didn’t matter in the eyes of the Qun, and why couldn’t Naishe see that?

But Naishe looked at her mother while the man called Luis looked at her, and all Naishe could see was a woman fencing a burdensome product too much trouble to keep, all under the guise of practical religious devotion.

A charlatan and a thief who had raised a charlatan and a thief.

So why, when Luis gestured for her to follow him out the door, why was Naishe surprised that a charlatan had stolen her life away from her, even if that charlatan was her mother?

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

“Oh, come on!” Isabela cackled, and the brigand got back to his dirt-stained knees. “That was pitiful!”

And pitiful it was, but not only these louts’ brawling skills. She had joined Varric on some horseshit escort job through the Hinterlands. Caravans of food and weapons were easy targets for apostates and bandits—the same thing, most of the time. In her past, a time that felt like a fever-dream long broken, she probably would have targeted these caravans, too.

Isabela had still been a better duelist than these idiots, though.

She wiped her daggers on one of said idiots’ tunics and found Varric doing the same with a stray crossbow bolt. Not like the tunics were serving anyone now. “Loot the bodies!” she called over, earning her a typical Varric snort and a couple nervous glances from the other Inquisition escorts.

“Should we wait for the throatslitters?” one of the escorts asked him, but Varric shook his head.

“Nah. They look dead enough. Let’s keep rolling.”

And roll they did, all the way to the latest refugee settlement that had sprouted up near an Inquisition outpost. And roll back to Skyhold did they as well.

They had just rolled past the portcullis when Inquisitor Lavellan, sans clanky armor, materialized. The Inquisition escorts saluted right away without even jumping, but Isabela’s hands flew to her dagger hilts.

The Inquisitor leveled an amused look her way. “You lanky, sneaky elves,” Isabela complained in response, and his faint smile grew into a grin.

“We learn to be stealthy as walkers of the lonely path. You stocky, loud humans can come out of nowhere to persecute us,” he agreed. A Dalish escort sniggered behind her.

“What about us stocky, loud dwarves?”

Inquisitor Lavellan laughed, and with a wave of his hand, the other soldiers departed. “You’re easy to track with all the hair you drop. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for disposing of the bodies so neatly. The last thing we needed was more bandits learning about our usual smuggling routes.”

“I’m sure Ruffles wouldn’t want you calling them that,” Varric began, but Isabela quirked a brow.

“ _Dispose_ of them?”

The elf blinked in confusion, face inscrutable once more moments after. “The ashes. You burned them, right? Scouts in the hills saw the skirmish and came as reinforcements, but all that was left were char marks and wheel ruts.”

“You’re welcome, sweet thing.”

“Hold on, Rivaini.” Isabela rolled her eyes at Varric’s stupid sudden need for honesty, but evidently this was _important_ somehow. “Listen, Inks. We didn’t burn those bodies. We didn’t have any mages with us. Shit, I even told your elf scout not to send for the throatslitters.”

“Well, well,” the Inquisitor mused. “Wonder what we have here, then.”

Isabela couldn’t muster enough energy in her to care. “Someone who’s a real giver,” she suggested.

“Better not be more demons.”

“I’ll have Cullen send out a patrol. Maybe—“

Sensing she was no longer needed—had she ever been?—Isabela made for the tavern. That qunari bastard was still lounging in a too-small chair surrounded by some tough-looking beauties, she could see that through the window. She hesitated.

She hesitated a second too long.

“You’re the Queen of the Eastern Seas,” a soft voice said behind her. Isabela flinched; how had not one, but two people managed to sneak up on her today? The voice had the uncanny cadence the offputting spirit Cole possessed, but no, when she turned around, it belonged to a child.

A beautiful boy, about ten years old or so, stared unblinking at some point on her forehead. His skin was the ice-blue-tinged white of something that lived in the dark, but there were somehow freckles scattered on his cheeks and his eyes glowed like golden embers. There was almost something familiar about him, something maybe in his cheekbones, or the line of his nose, or the sharp set of his jaw, but it was the black hair of the wrong texture falling too straight around his ears that rendered her disappointed.

“And you’re a little young to be a pirate,” Isabela smiled at him. No one had called her that in years. _She_ hadn’t called herself that in years. “What’s the matter, darling? Are you looking to be the Prince?”

That unblinking, golden stare. “I’m already a prince twice over, once thanks to Mother.”

What?

“Hm, well,” Isabela said with more cheer than she thought she could fake, “let’s go find her together, shall we? A bit lost to find your way to the tavern, don’t you think?” She began shepherding him not-so-subtly away from the building—and her future, now-abandoned alcohol—and was pleased when he offered her no resistance. The boy trotted behind her obediently.

“Where did you see her last?”

“We arrived just now, in the rookery,” the boy explained. “I don’t think any of the birds there like her. Not even the spymaster.”

At that Isabela had to guffaw. Who cared if they’d flown into the rookery or sprouted from the ground or somewhere else bizarre? Leliana wasn’t fond of her, either, not even after ten years and a single encounter, and that little joke was rather clever coming from a child so young.

The child’s serious expression didn’t really look jocular, but some folk were just like that. He’d tilted his head at her when she’d laughed.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked him, making for the long curl of stairs that led to the rookery.

“Mother calls me Kieran.”

There was a familiar story to that and the quiet, acquiescent way it had been spoken. “And what name do you call yourself?” she prodded gently.

“I have never had to decide. My name is not what draws the others to me. ’Twas always who I am.”

Isabela was starting to get little prickles on her arm. She couldn’t quite name the reason for her unease, because Kieran wasn’t _wrong_ , precisely, but the sobriety with which he spoke didn’t match the rambling musings of a normal little boy.

“Kieran!” a woman’s voice called from above. Kieran’s placid expression split into a smile, and he bounded up the stairs into the waiting woman’s arms. Isabela uncertainly ascended, if nothing else than to get a better glimpse at the person who had birthed such a child.

“Kieran, you mustn’t run off like that,” the woman was scolding him, her black hair of the same shade and texture falling over her face. “We have hardly situated ourselves. And you have some explaining to do to the Inquisitor about all those ashes you left behind you on our way. What have I told you about cleaning up after your messes?”

Kieran’s smile had drooped into a more normal adolescent sulk. “I was cleaning after the _Inquisition’s_ messes,” he defended himself, and Isabela’s brain hadn’t begun puzzling out this remark before his face brightened once more and he pointed directly her way. “The Queen of the Eastern Seas helped me find you.”

His mother finally glanced upwards to take stock of her, too, and the second half of Kieran’s familiar face finally clicked into place. It had been ten years, but Morrigan, Witch of the Wilds, Prude of the Party, still had an excellent rack.

Morrigan herself took a minute for recognition to flash across her face, but it did for them both. Neither knew quite how to greet the other, but were fortunately spared by Kieran’s earnest interjection: “Was sailing on the Eastern Seas hard, Lady? Did not the ships get caught on the chains of the slave corpses?”

* * *

 

**Denerim, 9:31 Dragon**

There was a lot of sputtering going on before Alistair managed to say anything coherent. “I don’t want _pity_ ,” he managed to get out. The more he spoke, the sterner and angrier his words became. “I don’t want some sort of, of, ‘there, now, off go those clothes, Alistair! In, out, done!’ and a pat on the head! Maker, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of with _Anora_ and here you both are, telling me that’s all sex is—“

“We’re saying nothing of the sort, my virginal friend,” Zevran interrupted. “What we are saying is sex may be pleasurable regardless of how well one knows their partner.”

“Sometimes you get lucky when you get lucky,” Isabela shrugged. “And sometimes…you get unlucky. But a bad fuck always puts _me_ right off my lunch. Makes me consider celibacy for a week or two. Imagine that, but _forever_.”

“I can’t imagine what I haven’t experienced,” Alistair said stiffly.

“And so you shall not,” Zevran said. “At least, not for your first time. We can promise you that.”

Alistair hesitated, and in that brief intake of breath with a little bit of a wavering hitch to it, Isabela went in for the kill.

“You’re a handsome man, Alistair. You’re handsome, and disgustingly good-hearted, and I’m entirely certain you’ll make some lucky Queen all warm and gooey every time you smile. So if it helps, you’ll be the one taking pity on _us_ to explore all that potential before you go on to show Her Royal Majesty just how good it feels to get all Tainted by you.”

“And permit me to say,” Zevran added with a slow smile, “Isabela’s fine ship has _explored_ many delightful places already. Any queen would benefit from a lesson in foreign cultures, no?”

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

Isabela’s soupspoon was halfway to her lips when the Inquisitor interrupted her lunch. No regular charismatic political figure would have plopped down on the bench next to her, plucked a single wafer floating on the top of the stew, and, through a mouthful of that wafer, informed her, “Fenris is wondering where you’ve got to the past few days,” without preamble.

But Terrill Lavellan managed to defy the odds yet again. Truly, Andraste’s miracles appeared in mysterious ways.

Isabela took a deep, calming breath. When was the last time she had been so short-tempered, had to stop herself from brooding or snapping or both, so frequently?

Back in Kirkwall. With Hawke. Of course.

“Listen, sweet thing. I love that you’re being the messenger boy just for me, but let me handle—him myself, will you? Your castle’s a little large to merit poking around, looking to save kittens or help little old ladies across the battlements like you do everywhere else.”

“By the Dread Wolf, the fuck’s wrong with you?” the Inquisitor snapped back, and Isabela’s fingers tightened around her soupspoon in surprise. “I don’t want to be here, either. I want to be home, with my clan, with my brothers, fighting alongside them while some other Inquisitor stops humans from slaughtering them. But I’m here, _saving kittens_ like you, because at least it’s something I can _choose_ to do.”

“How’s the view up on your high halla?” Isabela sneered. For a moment, she hoped he’d swing a punch, just so she’d have an excuse to punch back and boast she’d gotten in a hit on the fabled Inquisitor. But while his lips did pull back in enough of a snarl that she saw how elven canines were a little longer and sharper than humans’, all he did was stand up.

“ _Ir abelas_ ,” he managed to get out. “I should remember that just as I have my own problems, other people have theirs.” He paused, struggling not to say something. He failed. “But your problem’s becoming mine. Do something about it, before I fix it for you.”

Isabela watched the Inquisitor’s stiff back as he stormed away, still unsure how the situation had gotten out of hand so abruptly and intensely. It was evident enough she was not the only one in a bad mood. That something had happened, and that the Inquisitor had tried to cope with it by helping her, and that she’d shoved him away when both of them were too vulnerable.

But, she reminded herself, turning to her soup, he was right. She had her own problems. Other people had theirs.

And that her problems always became someone else’s.

* * *

 

**A camp in the Tellari Swamps, 9:38 Dragon**

The clang of steel against steel clinked in the heavy air, choked by humidity. Luis’s good old pal, the sneering Prince Claudio, snarled in the firelight. Blood stained the hilt of his own blade—his blood, smearing the leather without sliding his grip. Isabela kept an eye on his hands, trying to half-listen to his taunts so she could distract with her responses.

She and Varric were here on royal business gone very, very wrong with too much magic and political intrigue to her liking. And, while this certainly wasn’t the job she’d signed up for in her unofficial contract, never let it be said that Captain Isabela couldn’t change with the tide. What was some princeling or Crow or Witch or whatever else was heckling her in these swamps when compared to saving the world—again?

But the bastard’s taunts kept _revolving around Luis_.

“He was my husband, not yours,” Isabela panted, dodging an almost-well-placed swipe to her forearm. She could sense His Royal Majesty—the other one, the Ferelden one—sitting motionless in his bonds behind her. She parried, slashed, ducked, all while Bianca went _thunk-crick-thunk_ all around. Good old Varric, always having her back.

And His Royal Majesty—still the other one, the Ferelden one—had to join in on the jibes, too.

“Didn’t I tell you to go?” Alistair barked. His voice sounded raw, from smoke or screaming. She wasn’t sure which. A disturbing thought.

Isabela sneered at the minor lordlings in the brothels boasting about the military roles their mommies and daddies had bought them. But sometimes she wished they’d never grow up. That the only blood they’d see spilled would be on the sheets of their first loves, or in the vials handed to the healer from their forgotten one-time lovers, or on the soft skin of their newborn loves.

What a shame that Alistair had seen enough blood well before she’d ever met the bastard.

“So what if you did?” Isabela snapped back, another resounding parry sending gasping shockwaves up her arm. “You’re not _my_ king.”

But she sure did have _enough_ royal pains, she reminded herself, leaping away as Prince Claudio growled andlunged once more.

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

Isabela had watched Hawke head out with a small retinue of soldiers a few hours ago. She was off to a Ferelden town called Crestwood somewhere near the middle of nowhere, and had apparently left the _baby_ behind in Skyhold, neatly swaddled to Fenris’s chest. There was no way Isabela was approaching him now.

“Do you wish you had gone with?” Cassandra had asked her as they ate dinner together in the mess hall. Cassandra reminded Isabela of Aveline, with her preaching and tough shield and prim demeanor and tendency to respond to Varric’s cheerful morally grey decisions with disgusted snorts. She was also like Aveline in that, for all her eyerolling and blushing whenever Isabela spoke and poked at her, she never turned down Isabela’s company.

The walls of the mess hall hid the portcullis from sight, and the windows showed nothing but the setting sun. Still, Isabela glanced outwards, as if Hawke had marched her way back in the span of half of a day. She scoffed and turned her attention back to her druffalo pie. “Hawke has always managed just fine without me, kitten.”

Cassandra’s lips thinned, but she said no more on the matter. At least, not until later, when she, Josephine, and Blackwall were a bottle of wine into their diamondback game.

“Stroud was the Warden who brought the Champion’s sister back from the Deep Roads expedition, is that not correct?”

Cassandra was just as good as holding her liquor as she was diamondback. Josephine scooped up Cassandra’s latest bet and added it to her ever-growing pile.

“He was.”

“Is she your lover?”

Isabela smirked. “I certainly am _her_ lover,” she rephrased. Both of the two other women furrowed their brows in confusion, but she didn’t feel the need to elaborate. Two of Leliana’s most seasoned scouts could have done so, but “discretion” was practically in their job description.

Blackwall was the one to speak up, an odd note of caution in his voice. “Have you seen the man since?”

“I wasn’t even there,” she said. “Hawke…wasn’t interested in having me tag along. You know how she is.”

“Not really,” Cassandra admitted, drunken flush deepening into embarrassment. “She spends most of her time with her family, or Varric. Or the Inquisitor.”

Isabela hummed, already bored of the subject. She was pleased when the topic shifted back to good-natured arguing about who had cheated more, Josephine or Isabela—it was the former, to everyone’s shock. It gave her time to think about more pleasant things. Like the way Bethany’s curling black hair fell in waves down her shoulderblades. Like the way her breasts felt in Isabela’s palms, cupped from behind. Like the way her lips had parted in happy surprise when she realized Isabela had climbed in through the window of her guestroom in Chateau Haine. Like the way she pressed them together, struggling to remain silent through her smile, when Aveline knocked on the door wondering where she had gotten to, and the two of them waited for her to move on.

Like the way her tears had stained the Orlesian bedsheets when had Isabela confessed to it, although it had happened before they’d met, before they’d thought they could have a future together, as close to a family Isabela could ever have.

* * *

 

**Kirkwall, 9:37 Dragon**

“Isabela! You look…different.”

Isabela grimaced a smile. “Don’t we all.”

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

“Look at you, out here glistening in the cold.”

White lines on brown skin flared blue, and Fenris whirled away from the stone wall where he was finishing his post-training stretching. Upon recognizing her, the glow faded and his shoulders relaxed.

“Isabela,” he greeted her. “You look almost well-attired.”

She smirked and did a little twirl, her coat billowing around her hips. Fenris offered her a smirk and raised brows once she’d finished her performance.

“It’s a pity I can only bear so much snow before my tits fall off,” Isabela sighed, gesturing to said exposed tits. Well, their cleavage.

“The sacrifices we must make for Thedas,” Fenris said somberly. He picked up his training weapon and set it back on the wall rack. “How have you been?”

What a loaded question, even if he didn’t realize it. Which Isabela was fairly certain he did. “Out having adventures” was the reply she eventually decided on. Fenris nodded a single time, a loaded gesture.

“We could do with fewer of those, I think.”

“Alas, no coin in peacetime. Unless you’re trying to end it.”

Another nod, and Fenris wiped his sweat-dotted chest with a cloth and sat down on the bench. After a moment of deliberation, Isabela joined him. He still hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, and the smell of his skin, of the lyrium and the perspiration, made her tingle.

Soldiers in the training yard still clanged away, shouting good-natured battle cries and blasting lightning in measured strikes. She and Fenris, comfortable on their bench, sat a noticeable distance away from the main field. Cullen prowled amongst the soldiers, barking commands and suchlike, and Isabela kept a suspicious eye on him until Fenris broke the silence.

“I haven’t thanked you,” he said. Isabela’s face must have scrunched up something terrible, because he laughed. _Laughed!_ Isabela stared at his shining green eyes, even more mystified now at the sight. “For allowing Hawke and I to leave Kirkwall as swiftly as we did, that is.”

“You did thank me.” She tried not to emphasize any part of that sentence, but wasn’t sure if she’d succeeded.

“Not enough. It…frightens me to think of what could have happened without your aid. What _would_ have happened.” He hesitated, then continued in faster speech. “The end of the world rarely nullifies ten years of animosity. You had no cause to believe we could not handle ourselves. Yet…”

Fenris trailed off, and Isabela picked up before he could make her stomach twist with guilt. “We’re friends, handsome. It’s what friends do,” she said blithely. “I’m not keen on being the next idiot to take away what you love again. I know how important they are to you.”

Fenris’s inclined his head, green gaze fixed on one window of a tower. The surety and ferocity in his eyes let Isabela know behind that window, a brown-eyed, black of hair _baby_ slept, wrapped in as many quilts as its mother could steal.

“Nothing will take them from me,” Fenris said, his indiscriminate threat to the world soft in his voice. And it was only then that Isabela had realized she’d made his family a plural.

* * *

 

**Ayesleigh, Rivain, 9:31 Dragon**

“You didn’t know?” the head seer’s daughter whispered. She hadn’t flinched, not when Isabela’s grip on her hand had turned both their brown knuckles white, not when she’d found the sodden pirate shaking in her rain-soaked cellar, not when Isabela had bitten through her lip and widened her piercing hole.

“I didn’t know,” Isabela tried to lie, but all that came out was a creaking sob. The girl seemed to understand anyway and put another warm, damp cloth on her forehead. The cellar wasn’t too cold, actually, but the gesture was so full of comfort and goodwill that she didn’t have the strength to push her away.

“Do you want to—“

Isabela threw her arms over her filthy face and bit the fleshy part of her arm for good measure. Again, the girl understood. Over the buzzing in her ears, Isabela heard more cloth shift about. She wished she could turn off her senses at will when she heard the quiet snuffling.

She’d hoped the girl wouldn’t ask, but—“Does the father know?”

 _I’m hiding in the first shelter I could find during a rainstorm_ , Isabela wanted to scream. _I didn’t know who you were or who_ your _mother was when you found me. Do you think the father knows? Do you think I_ want _him to know? Either of them to know?_

But she didn’t scream it. “Please take it,” she rasped instead. “Please.”

“Honey—“

“I saw your little daughter. I see your lovely big breasts. I have nothing to offer a child, I know, not yours, not even—“ she swallowed, “mine. But its father” _whichever one it was_ “was a very good man, believe it or not. If it takes after him even a little, you won’t regret it at all. Even if it takes after me.”

The cellar was so silent. The quiet cries were a rip in the Fade, sucking all life and sound from whatever it approached. Even when the girl’s breathing felt unreal.

“He has pointy ears,” the girl finally said. “Just a little. You can hardly tell.”

Zevran, then? She nearly laughed. Oh, whatever would the Warden Commander of Amaranthine say?

“But such a square little jaw! Very regal, Lady.”

Now Isabela did laugh, a harsh, slightly hysterical sound. “Oh, the most regal little bastard of all,” she wheezed. She didn’t dare look up to meet the girl’s eyes, because she knew she’d see its face, knew she’d see the King of Ferelden in its scrunched-up eyebrows. But she hoped her plea seemed just as earnest when she repeated, “Please take it. Please take him. It’s not his fault he’s stuck in this cellar with me.”

The seer’s daughter’s sandals scraped the hard-packed earth of the cellar, and with a little more shuffling of cloth, Isabela heard laces pop open. The little thing in her arms quieted. There was equally astounded laughter in the girl’s voice when she said, “He’s a regal little bastard for sure. But it’s a shame his big sister will inherit the family name.”

“Noble features completely gone to waste,” Isabela agreed. Before the new little family left her to her rest and remaining dignity, the girl looked behind her. Isabela couldn’t see the bundle with the seer’s daughter’s back to her, so she allowed herself to meet that piercing, sympathetic gaze.

“Nothing about him has gone to waste. The woman who bore him loved him enough to see to _that_.”

The cellar doors swung shut with a click. Isabela felt such relief and such nausea that she’d never seen his face, never asked what the girl would call him.

* * *

 

**Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon**

The Crestwood party had finally returned, more somber but determined than they had left. It was very easy to make inquiries about the situation.

Cassandra was only too happy to share how everyone was planning to rest that evening, as on the morrow, plans for scouting the Western Approach would begin. The Inquisitor had pointed her down the correct corridor, relief plain on his marked face. Varric, in exchange for a busty effigy of Bianca the Dwarf holding Bianca the Crossbow she’d commissioned for his birthday but was now an early Satinalia gift, had dragged Fenris off to cheat Cullen at chess.

Isabela’s knock on Hawke’s door thudded so loud.

She wished the door hadn’t swung open so quickly, that she’d had more time to hesitate and panic a little and change her mind. But it did, and she hadn’t, and there Hawke stood with the _baby_.

The baby.

“Hello, there,” Isabela said. The baby blinked his sugar-brown eyes, one black lash after another brushing slowly along his light brown skin.

“Oh. Hello, Isabela.” Hawke’s voice wasn’t… _flat_ , exactly. But it certainly was guarded. Isabela wrenched herself away from the baby’s hypnotic stare. Hawke’s face, too, was guarded, the delicate tattoos out of place on her stern, angular features.

Isabela swallowed. What was she supposed to do? Smile, all breezy-like? Scoff, like nothing had happened? Stand here shifting her weight back and forth, like a nervous teenager?

“Your son has a lot of hair,” she said instead. “I should have guessed Fenris’s carpet didn’t match the drapes.”

A loud silence. Hawke’s shout of laughter surprised all three of them. The baby babbled something, wiggling his plump brown arms to express his befuddlement. Hawke stepped aside, allowing Isabela to move into the room. It was just as nicely furnished as her own guest quarters, as Varric’s. It made Isabela feel oddly, perhaps vindictively relieved that neither Hawke nor Fenris got any elevated treatment.

“He’s more than a year old,” Hawke explained, gesturing her to a canapé. The same kind in Varric’s room. Isabela sat, and Hawke joined her, baby in tow. “I kind of like the way it looks, all fluffy and thick like this. Maybe we’ll just let it grow.”

The baby screamed more delighted gibberish and thrust his arm in Isabela’s face. She dodged the swipe, but only barely, and his tiny thumb brushed her ear. She stared at his gummy and toothless smile, a little repulsed and a little fascinated, while he laughed.

“The Dalish savior called him Kicker,” she said. Her words felt clunky in her own mouth.

“It’s Varric’s fault, you know,” Hawke nodded, looking and sounding just as awkward as Isabela felt. “He’s the one who started calling him that. Now everyone does, although _we_ didn’t choose it. I figured why not just call him Baby, right? ‘Cause he’s a baby, and he can’t pick his own name and all. It’s just stupid when me and Fenris, you know, with all our—“ she waved her free hand in the air like that explained everything, “whatever-things. So we’re sticking with Baby and the fancy name Fenris has got. So you can call him whatever you want as long as it’s not rude.”

Isabela had listened throughout Hawke’s monologue, she really had, but as soon as Hawke stopped speaking, she blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

Hawke jerked back like Isabela had struck her. _Again_. Kicker jolted back with her, and he emitted a startled coo. “I really am sorry, Hawke. For before.”

“It’s fine,” Hawke said vaguely. “It was weeks ago.”

Isabela folded her hands in her lap and stared in Kicker’s eyes. It felt like apologizing to his mother, like the same person. “It was stupid of me. With all my,” she grinned and wiggled her fingers in his face, as if that explained everything, “whatever-things.” Kicker grabbed two of her fingers with sticky hands of his own, and Isabela tried not to retreat. Who knew baby hands were so…clammy?

“We were just, you know, wondering where you were, Isabela. Why you’d fucked off like that.” Okay, baby mouths were kind of gross, too. When Kicker had tugged her fingers into his mouth, it was just as gummy-feeling as she’d feared. Enough was enough—she withdrew them. “Like yeah, it was a bitchy thing to say, but it wasn’t a big deal, you know? I’m an adult, apparently. Bethany’s told me you are, too.”

At that, Isabela sighed and leaned back, meeting Hawke’s embarrassed glare with something like relief. “Hmm,” she considered. “Someone should tell your tits that, sweet thing.”

Hawke snorted, and Isabela was fairly sure if she were not saddled with a drooly baby, she would have hit her. A friendly punch, of course. “This needy jellybag would disagree. My tits hurt just thinking about it.” Isabela winced, but Hawke’s grin turned shy. “Do you wanna hold him?”

Isabela swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and shrugged, perfectly nonchalant. But her arms had opened a little too fast, and Kicker nestled in them a little too easily. She stared down at him, at his blinking brown eyes and soft black hair, the way he curled against her chest and poked at her cleavage curiously.

“He’s really a soft little thing, isn’t he?” she murmured to him, but Hawke had heard her.

“He’s got a weird elf nose, right? You need to support his neck a little more. He’s super squishy. Babies have a lot of opportunities to squish too much, and Andraste help me, but this Baby practically hunts them out.” Isabela obeyed, raising her arm so that it cradled his head.

“He’s like a wiggly pillow,” she laughed, trying to get a better grip. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. A pillow that’s had a night on the town. Or a week in the Hanged Man.”

“What?” Hawke sniffed, then grimaced. “Oh. He’s soiled himself.”

Isabela shoved Kicker back to his mother, remembering only just in time that his many reasons for being squishy also encompassed his fragility as a living being. “The joys of parenting,” she gasped. “This one’s all yours, sweetling. You’ll do it better than me.”

Hawke snickered and rose, baby on board, and began rifling around the room for—cloths, or rags, or soap, or whatever dirty baby asses needed. “Is that a blessing from your fertility amulet?”

“Nope. This one’s a family heirloom,” Isabela quipped. “Passed down from my mother to me.”

Hawke glanced over from the floor where she’d laid both cloth and baby. Judging by the scent still wafting towards her, Isabela was very glad she could no longer see either. “Oh? So I’m next in the Isabela-family line?”

Isabela chewed her thumbnail, sifting through names and places she’d thought she’d abandoned. “There’s a lot more people than you’d think mixed up in there,” she finally shrugged. “What’s one more generation?”

Hawke snorted again. Kicker, still exposed to the chilly air, let his irritation be known, and she returned to—whatever that process entailed, whispering little soothing nonsenses with such uncharacteristic gentleness. Isabela watched until Kicker was all bundled up again, arms waving and pink grin flashing. Shiny clear spit gleamed along his chin to his jaw when he turned that smile to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for makin' it through, and I hope that means you liked it! Drop me a note down there; share your thoughts with the rest of the class (and me) :D
> 
>  
> 
> Next in the Rory canon is **Growing Pains,** which is kid fic if you're not into that! That one's been done for an embarrassingly long time, unlike this one, so I'll post it very soon.


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